Lucio Fontana's Slashes

Starting in 1958 Lucio Fontana began the creation of a cycle of works that would be among the most debated and controversial in art history: the slashes. In fact one should use the term "Spatial Concept: Expectation" or "Spatial Concept: Expectations" – depending on whether the work presents one or more slashes – since this is the title that the artist gave to these works.

Object of negative criticism, easy irony, highly imaginative interpretations, the slashes are one of those artworks dismissed with a shrug and the typical phrase: "I could have done that too." They are immediately labeled as a "gimmick", which often happens when discussing contemporary art. Obviously this is due to ignorance and superficiality: those who comment on Fontana's slashes never know their genesis, meaning, or the technique with which they were executed.

The purpose of this text is twofold: to explain the profound meaning of these revolutionary works and to "dismantle" the mistaken beliefs regarding the Spatial Concepts, which are among the most important, revolutionary and brilliant artworks of the last century. Lucio Fontana with the slashes revolutionized art, introducing physical three-dimensionality into painting.

Fontana's presence on the Parisian scene, culminating in the solo exhibition at Galerie Stadler in 1959, had in fact a lesser-known precedent: already in 1956, the French critic Michel Tapié had invited him to exhibit at the group show "Structures en devenir" at the same Galerie Stadler, alongside Carla Accardi, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Georges Mathieu and Mark Tobey. It was precisely Tapié who, in the following years, dedicated to Fontana the monograph Devenir de Fontana (Turin, 1961), contributing to placing his work within the international critical circuits of Informalism and Art Autre.

The Meaning of Lucio Fontana's Slashes: A Conceptual Revolution in Art

Lucio Fontana's "slashes" were born from a theoretical and artistic path begun in the 1940s with the Manifesto Blanco (1946) and the Manifesto of Spatialism (1947), where the Italian-Argentine artist theorized overcoming the limits of traditional painting to include space, movement and time in the artwork. It is therefore between 1946 and 1947 that the theoretical foundations of Spatialism or the spatial movement were laid, the artistic current founded by the master from Rosario, which would have such influence on subsequent developments in the figurative arts. This revolutionary vision was based on the conviction that art should evolve alongside contemporary society, embracing the new conceptions of space that emerged from scientific discoveries.

The series of works titled 'Spatial Concept: Expectation' or 'Spatial Concept: Expectations' – commonly known as 'the slashes' – was begun in 1958 and represents one of the most radical reflections on the nature of space in 20th-century art. The title itself, as we shall see, is an integral part of the conceptual meaning of the work. Fontana arrived at the slashes after experimenting, starting in 1949, with the "holes", seeking to overcome two-dimensionality. The slash, executed with a cutter knife in a single precise and controlled movement, is not a simple laceration but a gateway to a real space beyond the pictorial surface. The artist meticulously prepared the canvases, painting them with uniform color and carefully studying the position of each slash, in a process that united spontaneous gesture and conceptual rigor.

Why Specifically the Slash and Why 'Expectation/Expectations'?

Because a slash is essential, sharp, radical. After the holes, Fontana feels that the opening of the canvas can be even more decisive. The slash is no longer a point, but a line: it becomes a controlled gesture, but charged with tension. It is not a gash, it is an affirmation of space. With the slash Fontana affirms that the canvas is no longer the place of pictorial illusion. It is a real object, which the artist opens to show that art can go beyond.

The gesture of the slash for Lucio Fontana is like a meditation. Unlike the holes, which were mechanical, repetitive, the slashes had to be perfect and immediate. And therefore they were preceded by a meditation that was very long; it is precisely from here that the title of these works derives: 'Spatial Concept: Expectation' or 'Spatial Concept: Expectations' depending on whether there were one or more slashes on the canvas. The canvas has recorded the time that elapsed before making the slash, it is a way to insert the fourth dimension into the artwork. If there are multiple slashes the title becomes "Expectations" and with the plural Fontana inserts rhythm into the work as well to make us understand that time has passed between one slash and another.

This apparently violent gesture is a creative act that transforms the canvas from passive support into an active element of the work. The black space visible through the slash, obtained with gauze on the back, represents infinity, the cosmos and the spiritual dimension beyond matter. The slashes thus become a profound meditation on the nature of space, of void and fullness, of the infinite and the finite. The choice of monochrome for the background – white, blue, red or gold – eliminates visual distractions and creates a pure and contemplative surface, while the black gauze, beyond its technical function, symbolizes the unknown behind the surface of things.

With the slashes, Fontana not only revolutionizes the concept of space in art, but anticipates central reflections of contemporary art: the overcoming of the boundary between painting and sculpture, the importance of the artistic gesture and the active role of the spectator, invited to visually and mentally explore the space beyond the surface. These works mark a decisive break with Western artistic tradition, opening the way to new expressive forms that continue to influence contemporary art. Their importance lies not only in formal innovation, but in the capacity to translate into artistic gesture a new conception of space and time, in tune with the scientific and philosophical revolutions of the 20th century.

The Fourth Dimension and the Overcoming of Two-Dimensionality

The concept of the fourth dimension was central to Fontana's thinking since the Manifiesto Blanco (1946), which speaks of "four dimensions of existence: color, sound, movement, time space". This idea was further developed in the Technical Manifesto of Spatialism (1951), read by Fontana at the First International Congress on the Proportion of the Arts during the IX Milan Triennale.

In the manifesto, Fontana responds to the theoretical debate opened by Bruno Zevi in Architecture as Space (1948). Zevi stated: "Space in itself – the essence of architecture – transcends the limits of the fourth dimension. Architectural space cannot be defined in terms of the dimensions of painting and sculpture".

With the slashes, Fontana reaches the ultimate point of this research: he does not represent what lies behind the canvas, he shows it to us, by physically cutting the support. The slash is therefore:

• A physical rupture of the surface: overcoming two-dimensionality
• An opening to infinity: the "cosmic" space that goes beyond matter
• A temporal gesture: the canvas records the time of waiting before the slash
• An embodied fourth dimension: aleatory component of the open work

As academic analysis specifies: "Fontana's space is not geometric but also always topological, linked to a specific function and characterized by sensory and kinetic features". This conception radically distinguishes Fontana's work from contemporary and subsequent experiences, anticipating the debate on the work of art as a phenomenological experience that involves the viewer's entire body.

Lucio Fontana's Slashes: Mistaken Beliefs

The slashes represent a gimmick without any meaning and without any theoretical reflection underlying their creation

False. As we have just seen, these works are anything but devoid of meaning. One must also consider that the artist supervised the drafting, in 1946 in Buenos Aires, of the so-called "Manifiesto Blanco", where the urgencies of overcoming art as it had been conceived until then and now "stagnant" began to be outlined, inserting the dimensions of time and space.

The "Manifesto Blanco" was followed by the "First Manifesto of Spatialism" of 1947, the fruit of meetings and conversations that Fontana had with young Italian artists and critics. This was followed by the "Second Manifesto of Spatialism" of 1948.

Only after the drafting of these texts did Fontana begin, with the holes, the path that led him to introduce physical space into painting. The holes already contain this underlying idea, and their evolution is represented precisely by the slashes. The Spatial Concepts are therefore preceded by no less than three theoretical manifestos. Such an extensive reflection is as far as possible from the usual "extravagant inventions" that sometimes appear in contemporary art.

The slashes are the work of an artist lacking the technical skills to create "real" artworks

False. Lucio Fontana graduated in sculpture from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, was one of the favorite students of Adolfo Wildt, a world-class sculptor and from 1926 holder of the chair of Plastics and Figure at the Brera Academy. Fontana was a sculptor of immense talent and skill, winner of several public competitions in Italy and Argentina, teacher of modeling at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas in Rosario de Santa Fe and decoration at the Academia de Bellas Artes "Prilidiano Pueyrredón" in Buenos Aires. An artist, in short, possessed of genius and technical expertise. His arrival at painting and the slashes was therefore certainly not dictated by the need to find something "easy to do".

Fontana exploited the Spatial Concepts to get rich

False. The master was not given to expensive vices, he had a comfortable lifestyle but certainly not extravagant and, even when the slashes began to gain market recognition, he continued to create very few of them. Over the course of 10 years the artist created only 1500 slashes, or an average of less than one work every two days. Fontana never had assistants, apart from the Japanese Hisachika Takahashi, who helped him in his work from 1964 to 1968 and who, in any case, never replaced the artist in executing the gesture of slashing the canvas.

The genius from Rosario confessed to Giorgio Bocca that he would have been satisfied with the income from selling two slashes per month. Most of the works were created following the insistent requests of collectors, dealers and gallery owners. After an initial period of skepticism, in which the Spatial Concepts remained unsold even when offered at a few thousand lire, the slashes became a true object of cult, and reached considerable prices.

If Fontana had wanted to get rich, he could have hired assistants. Once the technique was learned, it would have been simple for assistants to execute these works in series, and from the artist's studio several thousand Spatial Concepts could have emerged without difficulty.

Among other things, it is known that the master gave many of these works to young colleagues, even knowing that in most cases they would be immediately sold, and he purchased many works by these young artists to encourage them to continue in their research.

Creating the slashes is very simple, anyone can do it

False. Try going to an art supply store and buy a canvas of the best quality. Then get a Stanley cutter knife (the same brand used by Fontana). Having done this, make a horizontal slash on the canvas. Want to know what the result will be? A canvas that is not flat and without tension. The slash would open excessively and you will have a soft and sagging surface. A result very different from what the Argentine master could achieve.

The reason lies in the fact that Fontana, to create these works, used far from trivial technical devices, which were refined over time.

The artist from Rosario always chose Belgian linen canvas for his works, because after several attempts he found it was the most suitable for these works. Before being colored, the surface was prepared with a coat of white cement paint on both the front and back, due to its resistance and versatility, and alkyd resins were used as a binder. The canvas was then fixed to the frame by means of nails alternating with staples that had to keep it in tension. The front of the canvas was then colored: Fontana experimented with various solutions, from oil paint to aniline, although his most famous material is water-based paint. The choice of water-based paint, which became predominant in the final phases of the artist's career, was due to some essential characteristics of this material, in particular its tendency to dry quickly and its ability to guarantee a smooth surface, such that the lines of the brushstrokes could not be seen.

The master then had to make a further consideration: it was necessary to choose the exact moment when the canvas was drying. The slash was in fact made before the canvas dried completely, because a surface that was too dry would have contracted the canvas creating problems for the slash. Once the slash was made, the artist applied on the back strips of robust and thick black gauze so that the wall behind the painting could not be seen. They were made to adhere with Vinavil glue spread behind the two edges of the slash, and they also had a function that we could call static, since they reinforced the structure of the work (the gauze in fact blocked the deformation of the edges of the slash).

Moreover, the black of the gauze also had a purely conceptual function ("when I sit in front of one of my slashes, contemplating it", said the artist, "I suddenly feel a great relaxation of spirit, I feel like a man liberated from the slavery of matter, a man who belongs to the vastness of the present and the future"). The edges of the tear were then adjusted by hand so that they took on the characteristic slightly concave shape that distinguishes virtually all of Lucio Fontana's slashes: it was a necessarily manual operation, since the edges, with only the incision of the cutter knife, certainly do not end up having the shape we see in the finished work.